From 1 middle-aged, Hoosier-born father of 3 to another

"Sorry," Monday's e-mail from the Staples Center in Los Angeles begins, "we regret to inform you that your registration to attend the Public Memorial Service for Michael Jackson was not selected. Hundreds of thousands registered, but only a few can be in attendance."

Actually, more than 1.6 million people sent in online ticket requests, and I and all but 8,750 others were rejected. If that's the worst news I get this week, I'll be a happy man.

But I think attending Jackson's memorial service might have been good for me. It might have forced me to see the performer as a human being instead of everything else he's been to me during the years.

Jackson and I were born eight months apart in neighboring counties in Indiana to working families. By the time I was struggling to learn my dance steps as Snoopy in my junior high's production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," Jackson had carved out a well-deserved reputation as a smooth, sexy, dancing-and-singing superstar who drew the admiration of fawning girls in my class.

I was jealous of Jackson.

The guy even starred in his own Saturday morning cartoon show. Give him a basketball and I had no doubt Jackson could take me to school on the basketball court as well.

When puberty hit, my voice got deeper. Jackson's got higher. Jackson's nose grew smaller and more narrow through plastic surgery. My nose grew larger and wider through a combination of my dad's genes and flying elbows during pickup basketball games.

By 1984, Michael Jackson and I pretty much had turned into the men we were going to be. He was wearing colorful military jackets with epaulets and what appeared to be an "Ove Glove" oven mitt on his right hand as he showed up at the Grammy Awards with Brooke Shields on his arm. I was wearing blue jeans, a softball mitt on my left hand, and met the woman I was going to marry.

In the last quarter century, I became more and more like your typical suburban husband and father, and Jackson became much less so, even though we both were middle-aged, Hoosier-born fathers of three.

When Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of the bizarre and dead-too-soon King of Rock 'N' Roll, a nation cringed. (Although, while many American males would consider "once married to Michael Jackson" to be a deal breaker in a relationship, actor Nicolas Cage didn't let that stop him from joining the list of Ms. Presley's husbands and ex-husbands.)

When Jackson hung out with a chimp, we all had a good laugh.

When Liz Taylor told Oprah that Jackson "is the least-weird man I have ever known," we concluded that said more about Taylor and her ex-husbands than it did about Jackson.

When a jury found Jackson not guilty of child molestation, well, lots of us considered him as innocent as O.J. Simpson.

When Jackson died, part of me felt cheated. Not because the world lost a chance at greater music. I doubt Jackson would have ever approached the greatness he achieved with his songs and videos in decades past. I felt cheated because a sick part of me wanted to watch that guy grow old. I wanted to see what color and gender he'd be by 2028. I envisioned him as a 70-year-old Lord Voldemort, with two slits for a nose.

I'm not proud of those thoughts.

When Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died in the same week, I received an e-mail from a suburban man pointing out that President Obama wrote a personal note of condolence to only the Jackson family even though Jackson "admitted to finding pleasure sleeping with young boys" and paid a settlement to a boy who accused him of molestation.

Another reader noted Monday that we're writing about Jackson when soldiers are dying in Afghanistan. The death of Robert McNamara, an architect of our war in Vietnam, is a more newsworthy story than Jackson Death Coverage Day 12 for many.

I understand that there are bigger stories, and I would never defend Jackson's behavior. But I will give Jackson credit for bringing "black" music to white suburban kids, for charity work such as his "We Are The World" collaboration that raised money to feed the starving in Africa, and for being one of the most talented entertainers of my generation.

I do, however, no longer harbor an ounce of jealousy toward Michael Jackson.